


The Fall Of Zodiacal Dust

by Honey_Rae_Pluto



Category: Queen (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Space, Angst, Background Relationships, Heartbreak, Heavy Angst, M/M, Maylor - Freeform, Quantum Mechanics, Science Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmate-Identifying Timers, Time Energy, Time Travel, i'm so sorry this is gonna be bloody complicated to follow, seer Roger Taylor, time dilation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 01:55:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29428452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Honey_Rae_Pluto/pseuds/Honey_Rae_Pluto
Summary: If you know when your soulmate will die, if you know in advance of years when - to the very second - they will die, but not who they are, would you stop it?Brian knows he has a week to find and save his soulmate, slap bang in the middle of the largest revolution the 39th Deck of the largest space ship of all time has ever seen.Roger can read the future, all but his own. He knows his soulmate must perish, but the two sets of numbers on his arm give him no guidance as to when.Time is about to run out.
Relationships: Brian May/Roger Taylor, John Deacon/Freddie Mercury
Comments: 14
Kudos: 13
Collections: Meant To Be: The Soulmate Challenge





	The Fall Of Zodiacal Dust

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!!!
> 
> First of all, a huge thank you to @GreatFuckingMaracas for the beta read, they were amazing at it and really helpful, go check them out.
> 
> Also a big thank you to @Mother_Mercury who will be providing the artwork for this fic (for those of you that don't know, the lovely @emmaandorlando and @emsweetestsight created a Queen discord server challenge that would bring together a writer, beta reader and artist to one fic (not to plug someone else's work but go check out the rest of the collection they're all marvellous) for a valentines soulmates challenge, more on that soon).
> 
> As to the challenge, there was a whole arse bunch of prompts, I went with 'soulmark shows when their soulmate will die' cause why would I go for fluff when I can torture you all? So yeah, went down a slightly difficult path of heavy science fiction, hopefully it's not impossible to follow along with, but I'd be happy to explain more in the comments.
> 
> Finally, I hope you enjoy, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the whole thing, all comments and kudos are welcome. Please go check out the other fics in the collection, it's been a team effort from everyone, and I bet they're just going to be amazing. As always, any asks or requests can go over to my Tumblr (same name), I'd be happy to answer them.
> 
> Love from Pluto and back again xxx

****

**Six days, nineteen hours, forty-two minutes, eleven seconds.**

He sighed; settling into the desk chair with a hot cup and his paperwork, ignoring the carefully written numbers on his arm, ever changing, ever running out. Well no, not forever. 

They’d run out soon.

“Brian H. May, human plus, 39th generation Gaian, report for star ship Jupiter Mines… eh… shit, Jupiter eight, not just Jupiter,” The tape recorder in his hand buzzed, the small cracked silver apple on the back shining in the pale yellow candlelight. Old Earth tech, it was a bugger to convert to the Above, trying to get it to work at all was a pain in the neck. But he liked his little restoration projects - tinkering is what Roger called it, keeping his diaries on the machine, using it for his work reports. He'd always wondered if he could get the camera to work. He might then see the stars as his ancestors might’ve, along ago, before the implosion of the solar sphere. The original earth would be too far, but the galaxy was visible from any of the windows in the streets.

Back on Earth one, the original human empire, he'd heard they all lived on the ground, that people farmed and fed into the bureaucracy - they didn't work as star catchers or dimensional engineers. He was a direct descendant, it was his forefathers that had boarded the ship when it first sailed into the blackest ocean. He could trace them to the first revolution too, he’d made himself an amatuer historian between his job and day to day life, always looking into the old trinkets that came from somewhere unknown, that fell into their deck to be bought at the markets or traded elsewhere.

“The stars are quiet, more solar flares in the last quarteen,” He continued his work report, sitting back into the creaky leather chair, eyes watching the candle, letting himself unfocus his gaze, the warm glow crystallising into fragments. This was what he did for a living - management reports that went nowhere. He'd left the academy along with the thousands others his age, with a handful of diplomas and certificates, all to go into an office all day, “I think something is happening, or about to, the seers haven’t been able to pierce the veil, all of this deck is getting anxious, talk of the ship’s hull holding hell itself: talk of it all about to explode.”

It could be right, actually.

He’d never seen any other deck himself, the captains and Jarls; they could shift from deck to deck, but Brian had yet to hear of anyone going to more than one above or one below. Some said there were hundreds of decks on the ship, other’s reckoned thousands. They used to teach them that after the coup in the last millenia, when time was made legal; that the ship had carried on building, further off into the gravitational field of the closest angel star, completely hidden to its passengers.

If that were true it'd be living in a faster timeline, and that would be impossible.

There was a lot that they used to teach with no real empirical evidence, they were told the engines had been enchanted to run forever, that the seers were given their gifts by the sacred souls of the universe.

But those were just stories, just ideas of historians and folk songs long lost. Brian liked them regardless (Roger referred to it as silly, trying to pinch his face whenever he'd talk about it, giggling at the old rhythms). He'd always been collecting particle files with Old Earth music, trying to get the other three to care. The strange tales amazed him, something he’d picked up from his father. He remembered one from his childhood; a song of the earth, of corpses lying until found a week later, how strange it was to him - for life to be so free, death even moreso. He’d supposed for a long time, this was written before the Soul policy, before the government time tracking.

When a week just meant a week.

When a soulmate could just be a coincidence.

A week, the old measurement they’d replaced decades ago, something only the elderly used. That’s all his soulmate had left by the numbering in his arm.

The counter was branded onto them as children, scared little things pinned down and burned, scorned with information that wouldn’t be relevant for years, but that would haunt them their whole lives. It was the pride and joy of the ship, or so they were told - a civilisation working with superior powers. They, and they alone, were given the gift of seers, those born during the solar retroclosure when time passed just a second too fast, happening never and all at once across the galaxy. Or so the legends say. Those seers could see the future, the timelines as they interwove, and they in turn used their powers on the children - letting them know when their soulmate would die.

Basic governmental control, Brian knew, having studied forbidden texts his whole life, paper’s his parents had kept secret for the government. He was well aware that the countdowns kept people in place, keeping them too scared to do anything in fear of not meeting their soulmates.

Or it had been. The mood had shifted, a long while ago, maybe when people decided love wasn’t worth freedom.

Brian's had started low, but when you're five, eighteen years seems like forever. Until it became ten years, then five years, then one. All the while he'd never found out who this person was, had no inkling about it.

He’d asked his friends, John and Freddie, who had found each other quickly and still had decades together, who had children and a house together: they had just told him not to worry, there was mistakes made all the time, their own kids were still on waiting lists for the branding, likely chance is that the dates would be slightly out.

Roger had shrugged, saying it could be a glitch. He was a seer, just about, still learning the practice, his own date broken and useless, not particularly unusual in this occupation. He’d said maybe it was to do with how far into space they were, or maybe how big the ship was - after all, Freddie and John were together, same deck even if it was originally from two different time zones of it.

It would just be another odd blip in the system.

* * *

**Twenty three hours, six minutes, thirty two seconds.**

**Eighty one years, one month, two weeks, four days, eight hours, twenty minutes, five seconds.**

Roger watched as the numbers flashed between these two sequences on his arm, never knowing what it meant. He’d been a child when it was first explained to him, that it was because of his powers, they thought, because he was so intrinsic to the link between the zodiacal vortex readings and the humans that he was given these powers, and thus unable to get a true countdown.

Sounded like bollocks if he was honest.

He let the number submerge along with the rest of him, the cold lapping water washing his skin, sinking into the pool, blond strands floating on the surface of the water. He took a deep breath, sinking below it, eyes wide open. His robes, the fine silks and golden seams, floated around him like drops of ink, untouched by the fountain’s powers. Roger felt the veil shifting around him to allow his vision.

Roger could see the universe, in the beams of light that speared through the water, the collapsing supernovas and burning of the skies. Bright blue eyes witnessed again the lives of whole civilisations starting and ending, the peace and war, the sparks of creation and the embers of hatred, the screaming children and the end of the universe, and the forges that created the next.

Roger blinked, watching as the universe began, all of time in the bubbles of the water. He let the image focus, the ship he lived on, the outside withered and old, the patchwork structure breaking away. The ship was vast, ever growing in the light of the water. Only the seers could know, only they could bathe in the tears of the universe, only they could see the ship from the outside, feel the beat of what was about to happen, hear the cries of change.

Only they could see what was ending. 

The revolutionaries were running red, the pyres burning brighter in their eyes, the second great revolt. And they, the all powerful fortune tellers, had to be silent - the knowledge of the end would only create a cataclysm for them all.

Somehow that didn’t matter to Roger, he hadn’t wanted to see the future if it meant not seeing the person he would love unconditionally.

Roger rushed up when his lungs began to burn, taking a deep breath. He couldn’t control where he looked yet - this was all still part of his training, but he knew it, the end was close for so many on the ship. He could sense it like a wave: someone would die.

His soulmate, whoever they were? Would they die in the fight, or the ships frail exterior caving in? He didn't want to think about it for two long… would he be there? He wanted to be, at least to hold them and comfort.

He knew in his heart that he wouldn't live on after watching them die, even if they remained strangers.

But for now he had to sit there amongst the others, playing God above them. He wondered, would he see them die? John and Freddie and their kids? Would he watch as every fragment of his memories faded? Would he watch Brian die? That last one struck a deeper chord than he'd expected.

* * *

**Sixty minutes, one second**

Time was running out. 

Brian ran into the street by the main factories, staying close to the walls of the buildings. The busiest street on the deck was silent, no one around, the droning hum of the engines gone for the first time in his life.

He’d been up early that day, waiting for something to happen, stalking the halls of the ship to just stumble into his soulmate. He’d gone the whole way from the observatory to the water chambers and was headed to the main square when the whole ship had jolted, throwing him off of his feet.

People came out in confusion, it had taken him a long moment to realise that the whole spacecraft had fallen silent. The beginning of the end. He had to find his soulmate, this had to be where they died. Where in an hour they would slip away from him - and he had to stop that, no matter what.

“Brian, come here,” he turned to see that Freddie was leaning through the door of his apartment, waving him over quickly, “It’s too dangerous to be out.”

Brian followed him in, seeing the three small children huddled into John. Their house was small, though they were lucky to not have to share with any other family living this close to the seers’ temples, it still felt cramped. The walls never felt clean from the factory smog, no matter how hard John tried to wash them, or how long they left the filter on for.

“I have to go,” Brian told him, trying to cut down any argument before it happened, “I have to find them.”

“Brian don’t, you’ll get yourself killed,” Freddie shook his head, “They’re sending in soldiers from the upper deck, trying to knock out the riots. Don’t get caught in the crossfire.”

“Fred, the engines are dead, it really won’t matter who’s shooting if we don’t get that sorted,” Brian insisted, “I need to find them first though, they have fifty minutes left.”

“Uncle Bri, what do you mean the engines are dead?” Their eldest little boy, Galo, looked up from John arms, tear streaks already on his cheeks. “Are we all going to die?”

“No, no baby,” John - an engineer by trade, clever mind already aware that they could - cut him off, pulling him into his chest again, “You’re going to be fine.”

Brian nodded, who was he to tell children to lose hope? He wondered vaguely if he’d even survive long enough to have children, if there was any point without his soulmate, or living in a place like this. But there wasn’t time to think like that, not when the drums of war were getting louder.

“Freddie, you work in the factory, you must’ve heard something,” Anyone else saying that would’ve caused them to be arrested, “Where are they going to attack?”

“I didn’t tell you this... the temple,” Freddie whispered, going to his family, “I tried to get Roger not to go, but he had a duty to the seers, they won’t let him leave even on the eve of war.”

“I’ll go, I might find them there,” Brian nodded, “Even if I don’t, I can save him at least… I’ve got to get to the engine room first.”

“Go then, go get yourself killed,” John spat, closing his eyes as the ground shook, fire blazing outside, “Go!”

Freddie gave him a nod, staying with his family, holding them. There was no use trying to stop him. He set his daughter on his lap, pulling John close. This was his place, even if the timers were wrong and they died today, this is where he needed to be.

Brian left, closing the door behind him - the rioters wouldn’t attack the workers’ homes, but the state armies might. He stayed in the shadows of the alleyways, running towards the engine room, something people hadn’t done in decades, there was no Captain or quartermaster, no one was necessary to drive the ship so to speak - how could you? It was impossible to tell how far into space the thing went, it could go on forever, could be caught between a white hole and a black one, or falling slowly into a chasm; they wouldn’t have noticed.

The engines weren’t large - they didn’t need to be, only a panel that connected the warp star to the ship's navigation. So small he could hold it in the palm of his hand if he tried. But that’s not what caught his attention. Brian looked out of the large window, staring straight into space.

He shouldn’t have been able to.

The ship's energy came from time, it came from moving at a speed were time could be captured in its essence and used as fuel, a whole dimension running a spacecraft - rather, the whole of the ship standing still in time, all the energy from the unused seconds streaming into the engines.. The light from it should’ve been blinding, he should be able to see it shining like gold in the orbit of the ship, all flowing into the warp star, the small diamond that acted like a prism, converting the energy so that there was fuel, so the seers could use it to read the future, to brand the children.

But now the energy was weak, a thin gold thread of it coming in from the window and feeding into the warp star. It didn’t matter if the riots were happening or not, Brian realised, they were going to be killed by the lack of fuel pretty soon anyway. Unless he could shift the ship onto the next second in time.

But then what? The whole ship would move in time, just a little, but anyone connected would die, like the seers. Like Roger. And he still didn’t know what side his soulmate was on. Or who his soulmate was.

He got to work, rewiring the system to create the timer, looking out on the screen to see the temple’s residents running, the fires and bullets raining down. It had been a long time coming, but it didn’t make it easier to watch.

Roger.

His brain wouldn’t leave the thought alone, of all the people he knew that were seers, of all the people that he knew might die, only one stuck in his head. There was only one name behind his tears as he wired up the mainframe.

What other force than fate would damn him like this?

* * *

**Two weeks, three days, two hours, ten minutes, thirty six seconds.**

**Eighty one years, one month, one week, five days, twelve hours, fifty seven minutes, zero seconds.**

Roger ran.

He’d been in the fountain when the fighting had begun, he hadn’t heard it start. He was preoccupied, staring at the bubbles as they finally showed him what he’d been longing to see.

He might’ve been shocked, had it been anyone else, but the curls and hazel eyes just made him smile to himself, one second of warmth before he came to his senses: Brian would die in a few weeks if his first timer was anything to go by.

The fear of losing him cut through Roger, more than the fear of his own death, more than anything else in the universe. It had to be Brian.

Roger rose up quickly, he had to find him, if Freddie was right then there would be a fight, possibly one that would cause his death.

It was only as he reached the door that he saw the desolation, realising the fight was today, it was now.

He may already be too late.

* * *

**Ten seconds**

Brian pulled the last of the wires into the warp star, making it act like a button. A clicker that could, if he chose it to, destroy Roger, or if he didn’t destroy the ship and everyone on it. Either way Roger would die in ten seconds…

The realisation of the moment hit him.

The choice was between the entirety of the ship and Roger. He had to choose between his family, his friends, everything - or his soulmate. No one else mattered like him, the fact was inevitable.

He had to kill his lover.

His arm held the count down the final few seconds - same as the one wired into the engine, the guns still firing, the button heavy in his hand. In the distance of the screen he could see Freddie and John, running from the flames, buildings collapsing, rubble falling on the fighting. How many more would die if he didn’t? There were over a billion children on board, who was he to act like a God over that?

Five.

His eyes met Roger’s on the grainy monitor. Running as fast as he could for his life-

Four.

He didn’t look, his thumb already tracing over the button.

Three.

Roger jumped into the fountain to avoid the fire, the same waters that fed his gift, soaking him once again, for the last time.

Two.

Brian looked away, tears streaking down, vision too blurry to see even if he had been looking

One.

He pressed it, the nook he had been working in trembling around him, his heart on fire and the whole deck rocked heavily, sending more of the structures flying. But he didn’t care. He’d just killed Roger.

There wasn’t time to look up, no time to even take a breath before the world went black on him.

* * *

**-Five days, five hours, five minutes**

Brian woke up slowly, eyes shut tightly against the brightness of the room, for a moment completely unaware of what he’d just done.

“Easy, Bri,” John’s voice, his hands pushing him back onto the bed, “You did something so, so stupid-”

“He did save us,” Freddie was nearby then. “GO easy on him.”

“You were point zero of the largest temporal shift anyone has ever caused,” John clarified, “We don’t know who it didn’t kill you.”

“...R-” Brian coughed, voice rasping painfully, “...Roger… what h-happened?”

“We don’t know,” Freddie told him, “There wasn’t a body found. Brian, it’s okay - they’ll find him. They’re organising funerals and send offs for the dead. They’re clearing up all the damage, the emergency government. All the seers have been disbanded, those that survived, no more powers, no more soulmates.”

“I don’t…” Brian looked around now he could see, some form of hospital with cots for all the injured, various people filtering in and out. “I have to find him.”

“He’s gone,” John insisted, “Look, you’re not well, something must’ve gone wrong-”

“I’m fine-”

“Brian, look at your arm.”

* * *

**Forty years, one week, three days, one hour, fifteen minutes, forty eight seconds.**

* * *

**\- Five days, five hours, twelve minutes.**

Brian looked at the numbers curiously, not initially noticing the discolouration on his skin around them - the rotting flesh that clung to the numbers, like the whole thing was just /wrong/.

“The doctors said they’ve never seen anything like it, none of the drugs are working,” Freddie explained, “They can’t seem to get the infection away, they don’t know why the countdown is in negative time.”

“He might still be alive.” Brian pulled the sheet off of him, yanking out the IV’s and wires, “I have to find him.”

“Brian don’t be stupid, you’re only going to get more ill,” John grabbed at his elbow, the pain in his arm making him wince. “It’s just a blip, you let yourself hold together an entire dimension, no wonder it's gone wrong.”

“I have to find him, there has to be some other way, something,” He looked at them both, neither wanted to tell him otherwise, clearly. “I have to try.”

* * *

**Thirty two years, six months, three weeks, eight days, eleven minutes, seventeen seconds.**

* * *

**-One week, two hours, fifteen minutes**

“This, this works,” Brian was on the floor of his office, papers and ancient books everywhere, screens showing as much information as he could take in at once, searching for anything that could mean Roger was alive. “I can get him back.”

“Brian…” Freddie had gone in hoping he’d be asleep. The few days he’d been awake Brian had been obsessing over trying to find him, not letting anyone attempt to mourn over Roger. He figured it was probably the arm, whatever sickness was weakening that was making him lose it. John said it could be the shock of it all, losing your soulmate so soon after discovering them probably didn’t do much for the mind.

“No, look, Fred, look here,” He pointed to diagrams and scribbles with his good arm, the bad one looked worse if anything, the black damaged skin now spread as far as his wrist and elbow, “The fountains were made from tears of the universe-”

“That’s just a saying, it’s not literal-”

“It is,” He nodded quickly, “It means he was protected when time jumped forward.”

“This is madness…” Freddie took the paper off him, pushing him in the direction of his bed. He could see where his arm had bled through the bandages too, likely he’d not even tried to change the dressing on it.

“No, it’s not, there’s fountains on every floor, he could’ve been ported to one of the others,” Brian refused, “What if none of the stories are fictional? What if the ship is so large there're a billion floors?”

“Then you wouldn’t find him, not in a lifetime,” Freddie pointed out, “Even if he’s alive, we won’t see him again, I know it’s difficult; but you have to let go.”

“I can’t. I won’t,” Brian met his eyes, “Freddie I mean it, I never got to love him, never even got to know him as anything more than a friend. I have to at least try.”

* * *

**Twenty five years, eight months, three days, sixteen hours, fifty two minute, eight seconds.**

* * *

**\- One week, three days, ten hours.**

“Where’s uncle Bri going?” The middle child of John and Freddie asked, watching carefully as the curlyhaired man used a welder on a pod in the main part of the hall. 

“He thinks he can find Roger,” John told her, trying to prepare lunch, ignoring him - stupid man wasn’t going to listen. “He’s not well.”

That was true, even if he could find the correct floor without getting killed or taking several decades, Brian’s arm was likely to kill him in days, the discolouration now up to his shoulder and hand.

“How does he plan to do that? No one can leave this deck.” The Galo asked.

“I think he’s going to fly that heap of junk along the side of the ship, searching for life forms.” John sighed, he wasn’t going to tell them it was a suicide mission, they’d just lost one uncle less than two weeks ago, God knows the trauma from that, or the riots, wasn’t likely to wear off anytime soon.

* * *

**Nineteen years, eleven months, two weeks, six days, twenty three hours, fifty seven minutes, fourty two seconds.**

* * *

**One week, three days, seventeen hours, thirty three minutes, twenty nine seconds.**

Brian left quietly, rolling the shuttle pod towards the nearest airlock as soon as Freddie and John had gone to bed. He was aware that his own time was limited, but even if he died trying, that was better than dying hopeless. He left them a letter, everything in his will over to them, he knew he wasn’t going to come back somehow, and he knew it wasn’t fair to just leave like this, but what choice did he have? 

He probably had taken too long already, if Roger was injured he could be dead. Or if he had landed on a deck with no life on it he could have starved to death, or one with too much life that could’ve killed him. Or what if he was in the furthest away deck of all? What if time dilation was a thing, if this ship was long enough that Brian was moving at an entirely different set of time than him? The ten days it had taken to get to this point could’ve been seconds.

Or they could have been centuries.

He shut the airlock behind him, getting into the pod. It was a single pilot craft, made more for window cleaners than long distance travellers, but it’s all he could fix in time. He’d be flying practically one handed, scanner tacked onto the front of the hull in order to seek out all life forms.

And that’s just how he sets off, flying along the side of the ship into the unknown, gradually getting weaker and weaker. He flew until he couldn’t see where he’d started, and then he couldn’t see that point either. Flying just faster than the speed of light, trying to beat the fourth dimension.

In the end it took almost a week.

His arm now too mangled to read the countdown, almost crashing into the airlock at the very end of the ship. He’d travelled so far there that the ship looked different, newer, there was only one life form on it. A lone survivor.

It had to be Roger, or else he’d die in vain.

Brian fell out of the shuttle pod, landing heavily onto the ground, looking around for anything, something. A sign of Roger anywhere on the deck.

He’d never seen anything like it, the air was clean, the walls still marble white and green plants lined the floors and corridors. As he dragged himself along he was at eye level with strange flowers, colours he’d never have imagined.

Maybe this was heaven, whatever concept of it existed. He could’ve died out there, alone in space, this stretched out moment being his last, his mind attempting one last time to make him happy.

Or perhaps not. Roger would be there if that were true.

He managed to pull himself towards an observatory of sorts, going towards the glass, eyes watering at the sight: earth.

The planet was orange now, closest to the sun and spinning faster than before, it’s twin moons dancing around it slowly, imperceptably. He must’ve travelled further than he realised.

Brian let the image soak in, this wasn’t the worst death, going while the origin planet watched him, under the stars of mankind's original galaxy. Maybe Roger had been here too, maybe he’d been able to look at the same stars and that’s how they’d be connected in the end.

He leaned into the glass watching the earth one last time, he must’ve come too late, or found someone else or God knows what. He couldn’t reach Roger in time.

* * *

**Sixty seconds**

He’d been sleeping for a while, hardly hearing the systems aircraft detection alarm going off. He’d only gotten up on a whim, hoping it was going to be some space junk he could decorate with. Why he bothered, he was getting too old for it. Too close to the end, alone.

He’d wondered the corridor between his room and the airlock slowly, his walking stick tapping at the ground before him. Until he saw the trail of blood.

Normally he’d assume something had gotten in, some alien or creature. But not today, his countdown was so close to the one minute mark - he hadn’t even realised until just then, it could only be one person.

Brian.

Roger went as quickly as he could, following the trail into the observatory, hoping whoever was at the other end of it; the person he’d locked into the back of his mind decades ago, the person he knew had had to choose this over the ship, hoping he’d still be alive.

He found him lying there, breathing already shallow, veins on one side of his face and neck turned black with disease, the hand of his good arm extended to the glass, slowly circling the earth.

“Brimi…” Roger fell to his knees. He was so young, so untouched by time, hair still a deep brown, skin unwrinkled compared to his own weathered hands. It couldn’t have been long for him, “Brimi look at me.”

Brian’s eyes flicked towards shakily, hardly recognising him at first, shaking his head a little once he saw him. Roger’s eyes had changed so much though they looked the same, still blue and bright. But there was age behind them - a pain Brian didn’t know to be his. It took him a moment to notice he’d aged entirely, now an old man sat by his side, white hair in place of blond, more sallow where he had once had youth.

He’d missed it all.

“Roger… it’s you…”

“Shush, Bri, don’t talk,” Roger nodded, glancing at his arm: thirty seconds. “It’s okay, I’m here. You found me.”

“I-I’m sorry… I left you here-” He wheezed, not fully able to catch his breath, “I abandoned you.”

“You had to, to save everyone else,” Roger held his hand, “Brian I forgive you. Always.”

“I-” More struggling for air, hand gripping tightly to him, “I never … never got to tell you.”

“It’s okay, I forgave you the second it happened. There’s billions of people alive because of what you chose, I could never be angry.”

Ten seconds.

“No… Roger I have to tell you… I came all this way.”

“Brian-”

“I... lo-”

“Brian... Brian.” Roger stared as Brian’s body finally gave in, his counter running out. He shook his body, pressing his ear to the unbeating heart, tears falling onto him. Time had ended. “Brain no, wake up. Wake up! How was that sentence going to end?! Please. Please, Brian!”

Roger didn’t know how long he screamed at the lifeless corpse of his soulmate, but the earth had moved across the sky and his countdown was gone. All things were gone. He’d never know the words he’d dreamed of hearing, he’d never see the rest of the world again. He’d never see Brian again.

He was alone.


End file.
